Carter meets the family

We have been so lucky to have our family to help us through this past week. It started with coming home to Chris' mom and sister making us a wonderful dinner after having the sidewalk and walkway all shoveled and free of snow so that we could easily make it in the house. Since then, Carter has gotten to meet a lot of his relatives who have helped us to get a little more sleep and ensure that we are all remembering to eat.

Carter meets Mona


Carter meets Grandma Cupcake


Carter meets Aunt Lindsey


Carter meets Aunt Kellie


Carter meets Grandma J


Carter meets Grandpa Roger


Carter meets Uncle Nick



** More photos to come of Carter's other introductions as I get the photos uploaded

Daddy's new football buddy

Chris has a new buddy to watch football with and when needed, take a nap with.

Carter's story..

Let's see, where did we leave off? Ah yes, I was completely stressed out that Carter would be delivered by a search and rescue team. As the "Arctic Blast" continue the very next day, we received a call from our doctor letting us know that she now thought it would be safest to get to the hospital while we could and induce labor. Since all the weathermen said that it was going to snow the entire week, we agreed with her.

We quickly grabbed our overnight bag, asked the neighbors to take care of Mona and then, ever so slowly, drove to the hospital with chains on the truck. When we arrived, they were ready for us, and got us set up in our birthing room. We had to do a few hours of monitoring to make sure that I would be able to handle the medications and that Carter was doing well. Once complete, I started taking medication and the contractions started right away. They were completely painless until 6am the following morning when we actually started the pitocin to produce stronger contractions. By 8am my doctor had arrived and broke my water. There was no turning back now!

In an attempt to make a very long story short, labor/contractions lasted until 2am before I finally reached 10 centimeters and was ready to push (apparently, the pitocin worked completed diffrerently on me than the doctor or nurse had ever seen - they had to turn it off completely every hour or so and then restart it to make more progress). As we neared what we thought was the finish line, we realized that the baby seemed to be facing the wrong way. So, after every contraction, the doctor would attempt to flip him around which was more painful than anything I've experienced in my LIFE! After an hour of pushing and no luck getting the baby to flip, we had to try a C-Section. 

In the hour or so it took them get the operating room ready and get me there, the baby made it PAINFULLY clear he was ready to come. Chris got to come with me and he sat next to me on the same side of the curtain as they moved quickly to deliver the baby. I kept waiting for them to bring him around the curtain like they do on TV, but he didn't come. I then realized I had not heard that big baby cry that you always here on TV. Chris tried to calm me by telling me he had heard the baby make noise. At some point, they told Chris he could go see the baby.

After an eternity he came back and reported 8 lbs, 1 oz. I felt like something was wrong - why wasn't I getting to see him? Chris told me that he was fine now, but he had be stuck in the umbilical cord and had to go to the "nursery" for observation. He brought the baby over for me to see and then left with the baby to go straight to the ICU.

Scary, scary stuff! I got wheeled back to my room where different family members came in to check on me. Some already had gone to Chris and were able to see the baby. They told me that it sounded like he was fine and Chris' aunt even gave me a camera from Chris with numerous pictures of the baby on it. Other relatives had no clue what had happened except that he want to the ICU which was not a good sign. I assured them that Chris said everything was OK.

The most amazing nurse arranged for me to be wheeled to the nursery to be with Chris and see for myself that the baby was OK. He was, and he was absolutely beautiful!

So, what happened? The baby WAS facing the wrong way and likely would not have been able to come via normal delivery. He also had managed to get wrapped in the cord more times than my doctor had ever seen and had already made it pretty far down during our hour of pushing. So, by the time they got to him, he was blue in color and not breathing. They quickly resuscitated him and emptied the extra fluid from his lungs.

Talk about a miracle. They ran all sorts of tests, but had him back in our hospital room within a couple of hours. He has been perfectly healthy and lively since. He is a our true Christmas miracle, keeping us awake all hours - and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Baby Pics

Here are some pictures of little Carter. Many more to come...

http://picasaweb.google.com/HeatherDRoberts/CarterOReillyRoberts#

I thought stress was bad for the baby...

We took this picture last night as the final photo before the baby arrived.


Yes, his due date is the 24th, but our doctor had decided that if he did not arrive by 9pm on the 21st, we would go ahead and push him along. She told us to call the hospital the day of at 8pm to verify that they would be able to accomodate us (obviously women who were in true labor get first dibs on the rooms). A little anxious, we called at 10 this morning.

The nurse, Laura, was really nice and told us there shouldn't be any problem and that it was so good that we were inducing since the roads have been bad lately - this way we would be sure to be at the hospital, in a controlled environment instead of risking being able to make it to the hosptial when they time comes. The only concern was that they had us down for midnight, not 9pm. She wanted to confirm the time with our doctor and would call us back.

Instead, our doctor called. She wanted to reschedule the whole thing until tomorrow because the roads were bad. Problem is, the roads are not supposed to be any better tomorrow. She said not to worry and that if we were unable to make it on our own, we could always call an ambulance to get the hosptial. Furthermore, if the ambulance can't make it, they will send "search and rescue".

No, I'm not kidding. This was supposed to make me feel better. We went from a nice planned, controlled environment to a search and rescue team delivering our baby. We went back and forth about which would be safer, a planned induction where we have time to borrow a 4x4 vehicle and get to the hosptial, or taking our chances that we will be able to get out of the house at all.

In the end, our doctor was completely fine leaving me stressed out that my baby would be born at my house with (at best)a search and rescue team. She thinks this will be "safer". We have nothing scheduled and now will just wait and see when he decides to come.

The snow has continued to come down and we are feeling even more trapped in our home than before.


Since we've been stuck here the last few days, I guess we started to go a little crazy. We decided to take a walk (they say walking induces labor you know). So, with help from Chris, we got my snow pants and jacket on (OK, not zipped, but on) and my snow boots.



Even Mona had her sweater on - although, after walking for about 2 minutes in the snow, she was over the whole thing and "walked" inside daddy's jacket.


We walked in the deep snow for a decent amount of time and still, no baby.


**No real worries. We put chains on Chris' truck and if we can't get up the hill from our house in that, we have a list of people we'll be calling who have 4x4s. Sorry in advance if we have to call any of you at 3am :)

Sneak preview of what's to come?

Grandma J read our recent post about Chris working with his dad when he was little and shared with us that he was hooked on technology from an early age. We just had to share!

What a Christmas Present!

We're still on schedule for a Christmas Eve baby

37.5 weeks

Let's go wook

When Chris was little, he couldn't pronounce the letter "r" so, instead of wanting to "work with dad" he wanted to "wook with dad". Grandma and Grandpa Roberts have some adorable home videos of little Chris with his fisher price wheelbarrow as he "wooks with dad" in the yard.

Times have changed a bit. We currently do not even own a wheelbarrow and Chris' work consists of laptops and blackberries. It is only fitting then that his thoughtful coworker, Debbie, would get Baby Roberts the appropriate tools to "wook with dad" - his very own laptop and cell phone.

Can you even stand it?! I can't wait to see my men wooking together!




























As if Debbie couldn't be thoughtful enough, she made sure to remember Mona who received a new toy (wrapped in pink to distinguish from the blue gifts for Baby Roberts). She has been having so much fun with it!

The bump

The bump, the buddah belly, the baby.. it's getting bigger. So big in fact that Mona decided it looked like the perfect spot to take a nap and climbed up, made herself comfortable and fell asleep.

The most stylish carseat

We were pretty frustrated when Babies 'r' Us decided to stop selling the carseat we wanted which matched the swing and diaper bag we had selected. That is until we turned to Ebay and found a seller who makes custom carseat covers! Now he will have a stylish carseat AND a completely unique one!

Our little angel

A picture is worth a thousand words..

The day has come

This has to have been the easiest pregnancy known to man. No sickness, no heartburn, no health issues whatsoever! As the months have come and gone, Chris and I have agreed that he could just stay where he is as long as he wants because he is so easy to take care of right now. Mothers who know better have told us that the day will come when I  just cannot wait a minute longer for him to make his entrance.

That day has come. It was this past Saturday when I was woken at about 3am by extreme discomfort. It seems that little man has decided he is ready to come, but he is trying to climb up and out the top. Ok, I know that is just how it FEELS, but that is all I can envision. Well, it is either that or he is destined to be a swimmer and he is practicing pushing off the edge of the pool as hard as he can. Since Saturday, he has made several of the same attempts and I am officially past the stage of wanting him to stay put. He is welcome to come at any time. 

Just a couple of weekends ago, Chris' aunt Jeanette and sister, Kellie, threw us an amazing shower at Jeanette's home. It was a couple's shower so Chris got to take part in the opening of many, many, many presents! The majority of the family are Oregon State Beavers so, it was only natural that baby Roberts be suited up with OSU jerseys, socks, pajamas, and his own OSU themed orange and black stroller. One of his soon-to-be favorites is an OSU jersey with Aunt Kellie's softball number. It even came autographed!

The dual shower

If you can't tell, I'm not really on top of this blog posting thing yet. Everything seems to make it on here after the fact (WAY after the fact). Case in point: the amazing shower that Gramma Cupcake threw back in September for Peanut Roberts and Peanut Buxton (this is how she refers to the upcoming grandbabies - ours and my brother and his wife's little girl - since they looked like peanuts in their ultrasound photos).

The shower was a blast! Almost every guest color coded their gifts - blue for me and pink for my sister-in-law. Many guests even coordinated their gifts to match. When Peanut Roberts received the adorable leather booties, his cousin received adorable little leather shoes to match! We will have quite a few coordinating outfits for their first photo shoot. How exciting!

The swing

Auntie Brigid gave us this great swing for baby Roberts at the shower that Gramma Cupcake threw in Reno. Auntie Lindsey was nice enough to drive it all the way to Camas for us AND put it together! Daddy helped with the very last touch (putting the mobile on) and Mona helped us test the swing. Now, we just need the baby!

32 1/2 weeks

I'm a little slow to post since we are almost at 35 weeks now, but here is an update on how the buddah belly is coming along (funny tank compliments of Auntie Lindsey)

Little by little

The nursery is coming along nicely! Thanks to an amazing baby shower (pictures and details to follow in another post) and my own personal decorator (my mom) coming to town, the nursery is just about ready to host our little man.


We collected baby photos of our parents, grandparents, even a couple great-grandparents and framed them. It is so much fun to see what everyone looked like and to share with our guests who come to visit.


Some of our favorite baby shower gifts have found a nice home up on the ledge where they can be appreciated until he is big enough to use them.

As far as boyfriends go, Paulie Bleeker is totally boss

What do you do if you are more than 7 months pregnant and get invited to a Halloween costume party? Dress up as pregnant girl, that's what! Let me say, as far as husbands go, mine is totally boss. He really dislikes dressing up and this costume, complete with short running shorts and orange tick-tacks in his sock, was really pushing it. But, the trooper that he is, he wore it all and he MADE my costume! Alone, big pregnant girl in an ugly top, with Paulie Bleeker, Juno. We had a great time and everyone got a kick out of our costumes - they especially enjoyed the orange tick-tacks

Back to exhuasted

The first three months of pregnancy I could barely keep my eyes open for more than a few hours. Now that we are in the last three months, the exhaustion is back. Apparently, it has become contagious. Mona can barely keep her eyes open either (at least she has a nice pillow now).

December Babies

Chris and I went to the Oregon State football game this past weekend and got to spend some time with a ton of friends and family including Stephanie and Walter Smith - also expecting on December 24th!

So, here we are, Stephanie's mom, Janice (Grandma J), me, Stephanie, and Chris' mom, Joan (also Grandma J). It is hard to tell in the photo with the shadow and with Stephanie wearing black, but I promise, she has a pretty good size baby bump! I'm realizing that the size of the bump really is all about what you wear. Some days I look like I could deliver any day. Other days I just look big all over.




PS: please, not comments about the bangs. I'm hoping if I ignore them, they will be a decent length in a week or two.

Vegas Baby!

Our last trip (via plane at least) was to Las Vegas this past weekend for Chris' conference/shopping and fun! We had a blast at the semi formal complete with the rat pack impersonators. No, this is not a maternity dress, although I'm sure anyone who wears it looks pregnant which is why I got it for such a steal!

Bigger by the day

26 weeks

Our practice baby

Ok. So, she's not really a baby. She is 4 1/2 years old, but she is our "baby." We want to make sure she isn't jealous of the baby bump so, we decided to give her some attention here. Without futher ado, Mona Lisa "Mo" Roberts.

Another milestone

Today I reached another milestone.

A women came up to me a work, a woman I have worked with and seen numerous times since starting my job over a month ago, and asked "are you having a baby?" to which I replied "Lucky for you, yes I am!" We laughed a bit as she let me know that she just noticed my belly.

Milestone: the day that other people are confident enough that you are pregnant to ask without being the least bit afraid that you will respond "no, I'm just fat."

23 weeks

The big day

Playing just a little bit of catch up - for those of you who wanted to see more wedding photos, just click here

He is a he

We had our 5 months ultrasound on August 6th and found out that he is in fact a he! The technician pointed out his "package" and then scrolled over ever so slightly to where our little man was giving us a thumbs up. It is as if he and his daddy are already communicating.

It is normal to be jealous of your baby's nursery?

We spent most of yesterday slaving away in the nursery and are thrilled with the outcome! The ceiling is now blue and awaiting some fluffy clouds to be transformed into a peaceful sky. The striping on the walls took quite a bit of patience and some excellent frog tape which we highly recommend. Once the bedding arrives, it should tie it all in as will the window treatment. 

Ah, it just seems more real everyday!

Check out more photos here: